The Journal of The Journal of Elizabeth DupontElizabeth DupontElizabeth DupontElizabeth Dupont

The years of the French RevolutionThe years of the French Revolution1789-17991789-1799

May 6, 1789 The Century-Old Solution

The Estates-General assembly summoned by Louis XVI. Two fourths of the people in the hall are of the third

estate, but we still get overpowered.

The multiple water wasting fountains at the Versailles.

Our bakery

May 6, 1789 The Century-Old Solution

What is the point of divine right when the “chosen” King is incompetent of ruling our country? France has had divine right for years, which means that the King is chosen by God and thus entitled to the throne. I have a very faint and feeble belief that God would choose a king who is forced to go to the length of summoning the Estates-General for the first time since 1614. This shows that our country is in a bad state. France is very high in debt, having financed previous wars and paying for the royal family’s extravagances.

Yesterday, May 5, Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General, a legislative assembly divided by the three classes – clergy, nobility, and the common people. We had been anticipating a reform similar to this after Jacques Necker became the financial minister. Lately, Necker has been trying to clear up the mess that has been made by Louis XVI. To clear the economic struggles, I believe that they should start by limiting the extravagance that the queen, Marie Antoinette lives with everyday. My husband, Pierre, and I have to watch our use of water and avoid wasting it at any costs. We make our living from baking and keeping a boulangerie, which of course requires quite a bit of water in the recipes and cleaning. Meanwhile, the Versailles is filled with endless green gardens decorated by countless water wasting fountains. Our water use is to make a living. The royal family’s excessive water use has no point to it. I often wonder whether they ever understand the difficult lives of those citizens below them.

My husband and I are in the third estate, as we are neither clergy nor nobility, along with merchants, traders, peasants, lawyers, and businessmen. The aspects of the people of the third estate that divide us from the others are our lack of titles. My husband, Pierre, and I have run a bakery in Paris for many years. We don’t do bad, but money is tight. And as Louis XVI’s solution to most problems is to increase the taxes, money has become even tighter. Even if a majority of us Frenchmen are in the third estate, we are far from having the majority of the money. The clergy and nobility don’t have to pay taxes, but the lower and poorer class does. Our king has put the economic struggles in the hands of people who have no way of solving them. The Americans were able to go through with a revolution, and so can we! My sister, Adèle and her husband, Leon, have financially struggled in the shoe making business while also having problems with gathering enough money for taxes. They risk losing their shop, leaving them on the street. I won’t let this happen. Something has to be done. The third estate can’t suffer under the other two for much longer.

June 21, 1789 The Day We Swore to a Constitution

The Tennis Court Oath taken by the National Assembly on June 20, 1789.

June 21, 1789 The Day We Swore to a Constitution

France has rapidly turned from a complete monarchy full of superior nobles and inferior tax slaves, to a country in the midst of a revolution full of people striving for our rightful liberty. My pride in the revolutionaries and my deep want of having a powerful contribution are both unexplainable feelings. Adele, and her husband, Leon have had to come to live with Pierre and me. They were unable to finance a business as well as the unreasonable taxes spit upon us by our extravagant king. Space is very tight, but I value their company as we closely follow and assist the delegates of the National Assembly and their take on the revolution, with bright hope in our eyes.

A few months ago, the Estates-General had been called to deal with our economic crisis, but it failed and fell to a chaotic mess because of its own unreasonable structure (it isn’t a surprise that it failed so horribly when it was convened by the inexperienced Louis XVI…) In the Estates-General, the Third Estate had been granted twice as many delegates as each of the other estates. This was celebrated; we all felt that we were given more say in France’s actions and economy. To our dismay, we later learned that all voting would be "by estates" not "by head", so the double representation was actually quite pointless, as the two other estates would always overpower us. Pierre, my two houseguests and I, were outraged when we heard about the disappointing double representation. The Estates-General and it’s assembly had at first seemed like a way to solve some of our problems, but it ended up putting us in the same place as before!

We, the third estate, split away from the Estates-General in repulsion of the unfair way we were treated. The third estate became the National Assembly, but members of the other two estates were very welcome to join us. The King tried everything he could to retrieve us to the original Estates-General. Three days after we had created the new assembly, we were locked out of Salle des États, our original and previous meeting hall. The King thought himself clever, stating that if we weren’t able to meet, we weren't a legitimate or official assembly. This lockout didn’t stop us. It just motivated us to work harder against him, to find a new place to meet. We turned our backs to the locked doors without looking upon them as a hindrance, but as a motivator and commenced our search of a new meeting place. The royal tennis court fit our needs. After gathering there and discussing, we took the Tennis Court Oath. It stated that the group would not break apart until a new national constitution was created. I couldn’t be more proud that citizens of France are taking the revolution into our own hands and going against the monarchy, and I’m looking forward to watching the revolution unfold.

October 5, 1789The Downfall of the Monarchy

The women of France taking the food crisis into their own hands

October 5, 1789The Downfall of the Monarchy

My mother always told me that with good things come bad things. Ever since July, the King’s amount of control has become reduced, as many of us had asked, prayed and pled for. But with that, the people’s amount of violence and hunger has arisen. Both of these things started when Louis XVI blamed Jacques Necker the failure of the Estates-General, and dismissed him as the Director General of Finance.

In contrast to Louis XVI, Necker had known how to solve problems. When word of his dismissal reached the public, hostilities broke out. We, the revolutionaries, demanded control. We all know that those who posses the weapons also posses the power. On July 14, upon realizing that it contained a large armory, a thousand revolutionary men, including Pierre, stormed the Bastille, a prison in Paris. I was upset that I stayed home in a humid bakery whilst something of that immensity was happening, but Pierre’s account of the event made up for not being there myself. They had gathered in a large group, blocks away from the prison. The huge, angry mob easily took on the unprepared guards and they burst into the prison. It was an organized confusion. People rushed back and forth in chaos, gathering what weapons they could. But every man present had the same thing on his mind; by storming one of Paris’s most notorious prisons, a symbolic triumph was gained over the old regime.

During the months after the storming of the Bastille, the National Assembly got more power and did more for the Frenchmen. The King was still living in extravagance, which thoroughly disgusted those of us who were affected by the food crisis that had spread throughout France. I have no children myself, but many friends of mine had a large difficulty with feeding their hungry ones. I did what I can to give bread to those most in need of it, but as I had four hungry people under my own roof to keep satisfied, there was little I could do to support other families.

On October 5, 1789 the mothers, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and sisters of France marched to Versailles in protest of the food crisis. We were sickened by the thought of Marie Antoinette in a silk gown, sitting in a vast dining hall, being cooked for by chefs, being served by private servants, and dining with silver cutlery while we went to bed with hungry stomachs. This is what drove us to the castle, protesting and rioting against the unfair advantage that the royal family has. This protest was named the Women’s March of Versailles. Overwhelmed by the mob, King Louis XVI immediately sanctioned the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, two reforms created by the National Assembly. The next day the royal family accompanied the female crowd back to Paris. To ensure that he was aware of the woes of the city and its citizens, the king and his family were imprisoned in the Tuileries Palace in the city.

July 28, 1794End of the BloodfloodEnd of the Bloodflood

The guillotine was busy for nine whole months. It took the life of my poor sister.

July 28, 1794End of the BloodfloodEnd of the Bloodflood

Robespierre’s death won’t bring back the life of my wonderful sister. It will, however, end the horrible Reign of Terror that has stolen thousands of people from our country’s population.

Two years ago, the revolutionary government elected the National Convention of delegates to oversee the country. Pierre had grown acquainted with many revolutionary lawyers after the Storming of the Bastille. When they elected the delegates in the National Convention, Pierre was among them. Imagine my husband, a mere baker, making decisions along with titled men! I was so proud of him. To nearly every Frenchman’s satisfaction, the first action of the convention, on September 22, 1792, was to abolish the monarchy and to create the Republic of France. Breaking free from the ruling of the inadequate King was like jumping off a carriage that had been going in worthless circles for days, like breaking away from the chains that had bound our nation for years, like finding the hidden key to a door that had been forever locked. The next decision made was to execute of Louis XVI. He had let down our country in so many horrible ways, yet I didn’t agree that he deserved death. In the past, I had hated him as a leader. But now the monarchy was abolished and I had no right to hate him as a man. Pierre agreed with what I had to say, but told me that it was best not to express my views to anyone else than him as it could cause unwanted problems. Little did I know that it later would.

In the autumn of 1793, Robespierre and the Jacobins started addressing problems within France. The government started a campaign against revolutionary opposition known as the Reign of Terror. Anyone who expressed counterrevolutionary or counter-Robespierre views was executed. Even the housewives who always came by the bakery lost a sense for gossip (especially that of a political nature) and most people avoided discussions at any cost in fear of Robespierre’s faithful helper, the bladed instrument.

I will never forget the evening of December sixteenth, 1793. The shop smelt of spices and gingerbread. The holidays are a baker’s busiest season, and the Boulangerie was kept open two hours later than usual. Adele and I were closing the shop when two men burst in and declared themselves on Jacobins business. Adele furrowed her eyebrows and asked how we could help them. They asked which one of us was Elizabeth Dupont. Adele’s eyes opened wide, when she realized what I would learn moments later. Someone must have remembered the baker’s wife who was against the beheading of Louis XVI. Adele gave me a sly look that screamed for me to say nothing. It was a familiar look that she often gave me when we were children and naughtily lied to our parents about where we had been. She cleared her throat and declared herself as me, as Elizabeth Dupont. That was the last I saw of Adele. It embarrasses me, but I’m not able to recall this without spilling my teardrops upon the parchment. What Adele did was brave, but I will never forgive her for it. She took my place at the guillotine; my best friend and sister gave her life for me.

Yesterday, the Reign of Terror finally ended. Robespierre faced the same death as the other 50,000 Frenchmen that have been executed during the course of nine months – all for thinking independently. It disgusts and upsets me to think that my own views on the guillotine led to the execution of my beloved sister. Repose en paix (rest in peace), Adele.

November 10, 1799Back to the BeginningBack to the Beginning

The 1795 constitution that robbed Pierre of his right to vote.

November 10, 1799Back to the BeginningBack to the Beginning

We have been overthrown. Yesterday, Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory and instituted himself as the first consul. Once again, one man has the responsibility of leading our nation. Has ten years of a seemingly productive revolution truly gone to this waste? We want a republic; the Jacobins demand a republic. We don’t want a monarchy, nor do we want a military dictatorship. I, along with many others, opposed of the Directory and their way of ruling. I can hardly believe what Pierre has been trying to explain to me, even if it’s as clear as the creek water in the countryside. We are essentially back to the where we had started, with one “independent” man at the head.

Five years ago, after the Reign of Terror ended in 1794, the Jacobins lost their power in France. The National Convention still ruled as the government, but a new constitution was written. Although the constitution that had been written the year before gave all men in France a right to vote, this new 1974 constitution gave only people with a certain amount of property the right to vote. This outraged Pierre and Leon. They are both Sans-Culottes who have limited property and money, and this is what restricts them from having a say in important decisions. The new constitution created the Directory, which was the first government system to be split into two houses. The lower house, the parliament, had 500 members. It was called the Conseil de Cinq-Cent. The upper house, the senate, had 250 members and it was called the Conseil des Anciens. As we had been very used to, most of the members and representatives were nobles and men with money and background.

After the Directory came into power, the same old problems that had first begun the revolution began to creep into France. Once again, the nobles grew wealthier, while the lower classes, including my family, had very little. At the start of the revolution, we had made it quite clear to the higher classes how unfair it was that the rich constantly grow yet richer while the poor grow yet poorer. Now that this problem is still thriving, we evidently didn’t make ourselves clear enough. The catalyst, the spark of motivation to protest and carry on the revolutiod disappeared from some people. I had also grown tired, but I didn’t want to give up! We had gotten so far and we had yet to go further. As a Jacobin, I wanted a republic and I was willing to fight for it. The Directory had a bad way of ruling and it was not acceptable. They were running out of money to carry on the process of governing the nation, they ignored elections that did not go the way they wanted and they also ignored the constitution in order to do things to control the people.

But yesterday, Napoleon overthrew the Directory and we have yet to see what his way of governing France is. I can’t imagine him creating a republic, giving voting rights to even the poor, or clearing the financial crisis. All I can hope is that he is more capable than Louis XVI had been and less violent than Robespierre was.

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